Wednesday, August 31, 2016

It's time for a new challenge! Penny has given us a lot of great options this week with her Tic Tac Toe Challenge. Just pick a line - horizontal, vertical or diagonal - and the 3 elements must be included in your project.

I went with the middle horizontal line: Animal, Birthday Theme, Any Shade of Green.

The animal is one of the adorable images from the Pretty Kitty stamp set and the green is Mint Macaron. The sentiment is from Rose Wonder.

See that background that looks like Designer Series Paper? It's actually done with a mask from a new collection in the 2016 Holiday Catalogue that goes live real soon.

Masks are a lot of fun. After I had sponged the background for this card, there was a lot of ink left on the mask. So, I grabbed another piece of Whisper White cardstock, put the side of the mask with all the ink face down on the CS and rubbed all over it to transfer the ink.

And this is how it looks:

This is such a fun technique and I want to try it with every colour of ink I own!

Now, get busy and pick your line to play Tic Tac Toe. Just visit the Watercooler Wednesday blog to see what the other Watercooler Artists picked.

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

It's all about trees this week at the Watercooler Challenge. Libby is hosting the Theme Challenge and gave us the theme of trees to work with.

I do have a few stamp sets with tree images in them, including the much loved Lovely As A Tree, reported to be the longest-lived stamp set at Stampin' Up. But, when I was running all my options through my mind, nothing sparked an idea.

But I did have an inspiration when I was going through the Serene Scenery Designer Series Paper Stack looking for something to use on another project. There it was - the perfect DSP:

And it came together very quickly - the lovely dotted DSP on the right is the reverse side of the branches and leaves on the left.

I didn't want to cover it all up, so I ran a thin strip of Old Olive cardstock to cover up where the two patterns meet. Then I picked several words from the Thoughtful Banners stamp set, stamped them on Whisper White cardstock in Archival Black ink and cut each one out. Done!

In honour of our tree theme, I didn't crop my photo as closely as I usually do. I take photos of my projects on the deck at the side of my house, putting the cards on the railing. The trees in the background are what I see when I look out the windows - a great view!

Give our tree challenge a try, whether you stamp a design, use a die-cut, punches or some fabulous DSP. Check out what the other Watercooler Artists have done by visiting the blog at Watercooler Wednesday and link up your creation.

Saturday, August 20, 2016

I haven't done a lot of challenges - only the weekly Watercooler Wednesday challenges, for which I am a design team member.But, when I came across a blog called What Will You Stamp? - and their challenge this week is to use the Touches of Texture stamp set from the new 2016-2017 annual catalogue, I could not resist. This is my most favourite stamp set of the moment!

I love doing something called collage stamping. That means taking several images and combining them to make a collage. So, there was a piece that I had stamped awhile ago, and used part of it on another project - see that one here, laying on my craft table and it was perfect to use for this card.

The background piece is stamped with several of the images from the Touches of Texture set. Cardstock is Very Vanilla and colours used are Peekaboo Peach, Crumb Cake and a wee bit of Always Artichoke and Sweet Sugarplum. The edges are sponged with Crumb Cake and the card base is Mint Macaron.

The focal image is also Very Vanilla and more images from Touches of Texture stamped in Peekaboo Peach and Mint Macaron. It's matted with Crumb Cake and there is a bit of Burlap Ribbon peeking out the left hand side. The banner and words are from the Thoughtful Banners stamp set.

Thursday, August 18, 2016

That's right - we are stepping things up this month. What does that mean exactly? Well, we decided to really challenge ourselves and do three projects using the same stamp set. But, the twist was to start simple and then get more involved with each consecutive project.

Here's how we described it: " Project one: The simple, “I’m in a hurry” card. Project two: A look at the same card, stepped up a bit, “I have a bit more time to fuss” version. Project three: The same card again but this time totally stepped up, “Let’s see how fancy I can make this card” version."If you've already visited Marsha's blog, you saw how perfectly she met the criteria.I chose to use a stamp set in the new Holiday Catalogue that will be going live September 1 - just around the corner! As a Stampin' Up Demonstrator, one of the perks we get is being able to see and order from the new catalogues before they are available to you.My first card uses 1 stamp set: Father Christmas, 1 cardstock: Very Vanilla, and 1 ink colour: Tip Top Taupe. Oh, and it is also a 1-layer design and has a bit of sponging. Doesn't get much easier than that.

I just love the Father Christmas stamp set. It makes me think of a song on one of Nana Mouskouri's Christmas albums - Old Toy Trains. I used to have several of her albums and have seen her in concert twice.

My next card is still pretty simple using the Father Christmas stamp set again. This time I stamped the images in Almost Artichoke onto Very Vanilla. In the top right-hand corner I embossed some very fun pine boughs using the aptly-named Pine Bough Textured Impressions Embossing Folder, also from the Holiday Catalogue.

To get the colour on the pine boughs, I used a sponge and Almost Artichoke ink and lightly sponged over the embossed area. The image panel is mounted onto an Always Artichoke card base.

To further step it up, I cut a frame from the oh-so-lovely Copper Foil Sheets, and popped it up on dimensionals.

And for my third and final project, this is Father Christmas all blinged-out!

This stamp set has 6 images in it and I used 4 of them on this card. And the banners at the top and bottom are really sparkly in real life because I used a brand new product from the Holiday Catalogue - Glitter Stampin' Emboss Powder. That's right - embossing powder with glitter in it! And it comes in Real Red and Emerald Envy.

Now, I do have to say I found it a bit tricky to use. It is difficult to tell when it has melted. As you can see in the bottom left hand corner, it was not totally melted and some of it rubbed off when I glued the image panel to the cardstock. But - that just means I need more practice with it, right?

Father Christmas and his bag of gifts were stamped onto Whisper White cardstock using Archival Black ink. I used many, many markers to colour - and there is a lot to colour in these two images! Some clear Wink of Stella makes his beard glisten like there are snow flakes in it, and the trim on his robe is done with a white gel pen.

The bag of toys was fussy-cut and popped up with dimensionals. But, first, I added some extra embellishments to it. I attached a piece of the new Craft Rope Trim around the bag using mini glue dots.

Then I had a brilliant idea! Or so I thought. Another fun new item in the Holiday Catalogue is Mini Jingle Bells in silver and red. Warning: they really are mini! My idea was to use some Copper Metallic Thread to hang them from the Craft Rope Trim. Easier said than done. Took me the better part of half an hour to thread the almost invisible metallic thread through the barely visible hole in the mini jingle bell and tie said almost invisible metallic thread in a knot to hold the very mini jingle bell!

I love the mini jingle bells - but think they will definitely work better in shaker cards. Here's a closeup of the bag of toys - and the jingle bells:

This is a stamp set that will stay in my collection. It is timeless!

I had a lot of fun doing these projects, and I hope you have fun seeing what all of the Watercooler Blog Hoppers have done with our theme this month.

Now it's time to visit Priscilla who has some more amazing projects for you. Just click on the 'Next' button to continue your journey.

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

This week at the Watercooler, it's my turn to host the challenge. I picked a colour challenge featuring some new InColors along with core colours. And I think these colours are very summery.

To showcase these lovely colours, I decided to do an emboss resist technique.

The dragonfly image is from my current favourite stamp set, Touches of Texture. I stamped it multiple times with Versa Mark ink on Whisper White cardstock and embossed it with white embossing powder. Then each colour was sponged randomly all over, completely covering the cardstock. After sponging, use a soft cloth or paper towel and wipe any ink from the embossed images.

For the sentiment, I used this one from Picture Perfect. I love this sentiment! It is stamped in Watermelon Wonder and the dragonflies are Daffodil Delight. The cardstock was cut with two of the Lots of Labels Thinlits.

How do these colours inspire you? Check out the Watercooler Wednesday blog to see how the other Watercooler Artists used the challenge colours. Then link up yours.

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

We have another CAS - as in Clean and Simple - challenge this week, with a theme of Water.

Doesn't that image just make you want to dive right in? Well - I have to admit, this one had me stumped. I turned over a lot of ideas in my brain and nothing I could come up with seemed just right.

So, as often happens with me, the days slid by and suddenly it was Monday - deadline day! Sometimes I need that last minute pressure I guess. So I grabbed the "I" block - that's the one that measures 5 7/8"x 2 1/4" and this is what happened:

Starting at the top of the block, along the long side, I inked it up by rubbing the Tempting Turquoise stamp pad right onto the block. Next, I used Island Indigo, and finally, at the bottom, finished up with Dapper Denim.

Next, spritz water onto the ink until it beads up. Then stamp it right onto Whisper White cardstock. I like to hold the block in place for a minute or so to give the ink a chance to spread out.

I love watching the ink spread! This technique is so fun because you never know how it will turn out.

I made sure it was really dry before stamping the sea star stamp from Picture Perfect with Versamark ink and covering with Copper Embossing Powder. You can use your heat tool to dry the ink, if you don't have time to let it air dry.

The Picture Perfect stamp set is a multi-step set, but I only used one layer of the Sea Star. The sentiment is also from that set. And, if you noticed the darker dots - they are from the Playful Backgrounds stamp set, done with Island Indigo ink. A few spatters of Tempting Turquoise finish things off.

Wednesday, August 3, 2016

It's sketchy this week at the the Watercooler! Our host, Kath, has given us a sketch challenge. This type of challenge leaves things wide open as far as colours, theme and stamp set. All that's required is to follow the sketch layout, whether you use it as is or flip it. Here is the sketch:

I immediately knew I wanted to create my own stamped designer paper using the wonderful stamp set Touches of Texture. This set has everything: textures, flora and fauna - that is flowers and a cute dragon fly and a bee. And I used almost every stamp in the set!

I love doing this collage-type stamping! I used Very Vanilla card stock and just started stamping all the different texture stamps randomly across a whole sheet of it. For colours I went with Peekaboo Peach, Flirty Flamingo, Crumb Cake and Always Artichoke. I used the stamping off method to achieve various shades of the same colour. This simply means inking up the stamp and then stamping mulitiple times until it runs out of ink.

Once I had the sheet of Very Vanilla covered, I cut it into the pieces as indicated on the sketch and glued them to the Crumb Cake card base. Then I took my Always Artichoke marker and outlined each piece to give it a bit of definition. I also stamped along the edge of the Crumb Cake in Peekaboo Peach using one of the smaller texture stamps in the set.

The greeting is from the Tin of Cards set, as are the doodly-looking lines in the top left corner. Here's a closer look:

This is a fabulous stamp set and I have used it a lot already.

So pick your favourite stamp set of the moment, and your favourite colours of the moment and show us how you interpret this sketch. Visit the Watercooler Wednesday Challenge Blog to link up your creation.

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"This is a personal web site of Gail Allen, an Independent Stampin' Up! Demonstrator, and I am responsible for its content. Stampin' Up! does not endorse the use of or contents of the classes, services, or non-Stampin' Up! products I may offer here."